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I acknowledged that. Just because there wasn't a law, doesn't mean the concept and implication of patient confidentiality didn't exist.

So prior to HIPAA, there was no such thing as the concept of patient confidentiality? K. Pretty sure HIPAA is not HIPAA worldwide, either.

I am a nurse, thank you!

Just as other professions outside of nurses save lives. I never even implied that saving lives only happens in acute care hospitals. OrganizedChaos first said that medical assistants only work in clinics and are never in a position to even perform CPR or save lives. An obviously ignorant and demeaning statement. Also - patients that are circling the drain are not forbidden to enter clinics. I've also seen patients code in clinics. All I'm trying to say is these generalizations from OC are not respectful.

OP, I was a medical assistant for about ten years before I graduated nursing school and got my first RN job 😊 as an MA, I worked in primary care clinics and it was this experience that lit a fire under my butt and made me want to pursue nursing. I thoroughly loved the relationships I developed with my providers and patients and I became a very valued person as the in-between. All of the things I came to know as a medical assistant (medications and their indications, common doses, side effects, interactions), medical conditions, hands on skills like blood draws, EKGs, collecting specimens and running lab tests, and the list goes on - all proved soo useful in nursing school and now as a nurse. Not to mention the abundance of interaction with patients, families, and other healthcare professionals. Depending on what type of clinic (specialty, urgent care, large chain, private owned, etc), MA roles vary a ton. Some places might have you doing secretary stuff like front office, and other places you never touch a phone or do any clerical duties. Some places have their own lab that collect all specimens and run tests, or you as an MA might do that in addition or instead of rooming patients. Lots of variety and it's different everywhere. Good interview questions or even just things to consider. People will say MA's are nothing close to nurses, which is true because they are different professions, but I'm so so grateful and fortunate for my MA background!! It's also a good "in" with healthcare organizations and places of employment if you desire to stay within the chain when you become a nurse :) I'm not sure if any of this helps but good luck!!

Why do you feel the need to put down other professions? I worked in a clinic that did not employ nurses on site so yeah, I was the one administering first aid. without another clinic at the very least OR hospital or urgent care less than 9 miles radius. I have been very important in the role of caring for patients assuming because it's a clinic it is equipped for any medical problems. People walking in with PE's, lacerations, shock symptoms, burns, chest pain, bacterial meningitis, the list goes on. "MA's work in clinics where the likelihood is slim that they would ever have to do CPR or anything to save a patient." Your All Nurses posse will continue to accuse me of being the negative person, but your posts continue to bash other important people! Medical assistants are the ones that first see the patient and get a general sense of their condition when they come in, and a good medical assistant will be aware of concerning signs and symptoms and take further steps. Many times I've positioned patients to help with breathing, obtain EKGs before the doc even has to ask, start running labs that are pertinent, and set up procedure rooms stat for lac repairs or casting or whatever! Medical assistants and LPNs play the same role in every clinic I've ever come in contact with. Idk why you are so against something so similar to your own role. In my state, LPNs DO NOT work in hospitals AT ALL so I could say the same "not saving lives" mumbo jumbo that you said right back at you. But I won't :)

You quoted me and asked when in nursing school it was taught that all siderails up is considered a restraint so I answered you. To be more specific, it was included in basic skills learned in the first part of class. Nobody is being rude to you.

Maybe school for RN and LVN are different. Otherwise, I can't explain why you didn't learn this the first week of class like my fellow nurses and myself.

Nursing School 101

...No.

I took that from my contract, so no I don't have a link. If it's not easily available to outsiders, I don't feel comfortable sharing more than I already have. Perhaps you can contact MNA directly.

33.45 hourly for BSN with 1 yr experience for inpatient, 28.77 for ambulatory is what I came up with

I did think that was a little odd too; my instructors were also the ones with access to the Pyxis and Omnicells.

I apologize, we all know that it's hard to decipher tone over written word. I completely agree with everything in your post and this is how all of my clinicals went, in various hospitals even. Because of the consistency throughout organizations here and their policies for nursing students, I pretty much assumed it would be like that everywhere. It is hard to tell what exactly is going on at OP's clinical sites, but it doesn't sound like what you and I describe. It's also impossible for us to know where that breakdown of communication/understanding is happening. We do have an obligation to be assertive and take initiative, so perhaps staff is giving the students a chance to "bite" and jump in after determining how they can help or what they can perform independently. Who knows?!

OP, I actually have an answer for you. If it looks like a cheap, trashy, bleach blonde job (I'm picturing Christina Aguilera's hair 10 years ago that coordinated so well with her sketchy spandex onesies), dye it all brown. NOT SAYING THIS IS TRUE, but hopefully you know what I mean. Which you probably do, or you wouldn't have asked about it. If it's not uneven or blotchy or yellow, then don't worry about it. Regardless, your hair is a way to express yourself and you should be comfortable with staying who you project yourself to be even if you are going to pursue nursing. But keep in mind that REGARDLESS of hair color, others do judge on appearance without even trying, so do your best to look trustworthy and professional and intelligent. I'm not going to comment on the "dumb blonde" thing because enough people already have.

I definitely feel that it helped. Our class was taught the decision tree, and even though I found myself jumping off the decision tree, falling out of it, and arguing against it, I stuck to it and I'm glad. I had some really hard questions on the NCLEX that were prioritization drag-and-drop in the correct order. I was freaking out because my mind flooded trying to rationalize every possible order, but I wasn't getting anywhere so I jumped back in the tree. I put them in order just as Kaplan taught, even though I was still so unsure of them actually being correct. You should do all practice questions available, and repeat the areas/q-trainers you scored lowest in. On the readiness exam I scored like 2% above Kaplan's recommended percentage, which made me sooo uneasy, but most of my Kaplan classmates scored that or even lower than the recommended. I passed on the first try with 86 questions, and all of my classmates have passed on the first try. Hope this helps! Good luck!

I hope I don't become jaded either, as some of these folks seem. However, I'm an "actual nurse" with a significant background in patient care but less than yours, and I found the comment to you "come back when you're a real nurse, blah blah, you don't know what it's like to be a nurse," offensive and downright rude. I had a pretty good idea of what being a "real nurse" would be like prior to finishing school, and that idea is unchanged now that I'm working as an RN. Not sure what kind of rainbow unicorn nursing school that poster went to, but it's pretty legit to have an idea of what being a nurse is going to be like. Therapeutic Communication 101 must not be a required course everywhere, haha. Oh well. Good luck with everything!!

Wholeheartedly agree. As nurses, we have a passion (and duty) to educate. So so difficult when we barely have time to teach our own patients.

Yay! Happy to hear you've decided to start your nursing journey! Although it wasn't ideal, I maintained a full time job throughout school because I couldn't afford not to. In my opinion, volunteering at a hospital and/or becoming a CNA will provide invaluable experience and great insight on what nursing actually looks like, but if you're anything like me, doing more than one major life change at once (starting school/new classes, obtaining certifications, applying for new jobs, starting new jobs) totally sends my anxiety through the roof and makes it difficult to fully put my all into any one of those things simultaneously. Not to sound daunting, but it's kind of a long road. You know yourself best, so feel it out and don't feel in a hurry to do all of these other moving parts. So in my opinion, a CNA position will most likely be a wonderful stepping stone for a nurse job when you finish school, but it's a TON of physical work so keep things like that in mind when thinking about what kind of work you want to do while in school. However, I did not work as a CNA at all, and I was so envious of my classmates who did. Little things that can seem simple like finding a flow for performing hygiene care, assisting with ambulating, obtaining vitals, and even just interaction with patients is a huge gain if you were to work as a CNA. I am a floor nurse now and I still fumble sometimes with the best ways to reposition, etc. and my CNAs are soo amazing because they teach me tricks all the time! So having that hands-on experience as a CNA will continue to benefit you even after you become a nurse. Volunteer hours was a requirement for my nursing program, so keep it in mind that you might end up being required to volunteer at a hospital, also another great chance to gain insight as well as a potential foot in the door. For me, being physically tired made it harder to stay up studying, etc. Make sure to take very good care of yourself throughout this, mentally and physically :) I'm not sure if any of this helps, but I hope so! Good luck!!

I do want to point out that although I am in a RN-BSN program now, I'm not just a student. I'm an "actual nurse" with an "actual nurse" job. The posts from students (and mine included) have not occurred to me as giving a know-it-all-attitude. Speaking for myself and probably some other posters, yes, there were things that we did know and we were confident that we could be trusted to perform certain tasks like vital signs. Thanks for your opinion, though!

OP, I am a recent grad and I completely understand because we went through the same thing. We received our patient assignments and "co-nurses" then never saw our nurse for the rest of the shift. Your school must be doing it differently, but our instructors were our go-to person for everything. Our clinical groups were small and we were organized so everything went smoothly. We worked mostly with each other (us students and our instructor) than we did with any of the hospitals' staff. For tasks requiring higher levels of skill or something that we hadn't done before, it was a rule that our instructor or the staff nurse needed to be with us. Usually our instructor but if our instructor was comfortable letting us do something with the staff nurse, she'd decide and give us permission on a case-to-case basis. The intent of our school instructors teaching us rather than staff nurses was so that we were learning how to assess/whatever the "right" way/"by the book" rather than real world seasoned nurse ways. In no way did we work under the staff RN's license and they were not held liable for any potential mistakes;our instructors and school were. Again, it sounds like your school differs majorly in that aspect. My advice:just get through clinicals and school. Don't let there be ANY way that those hospital staff can say or think anything negative about you, because you never know when networking will prove important when you finish and apply for jobs. I will say that it's interesting that several ACTUAL NURSES on this post are the ones giving off rude self-righteous vibes. Watch out for that species Good luck!!!

OP was mimicking the way that NurseLeigh responded to OP. ACTUAL NURSE NurseLeigh is the snide snarky one if anything!

Honestly OP, I'm really happy for you and I'm excited for you. I'm pretty sure that if you showed any fraction of this genuine passion you've shown here in your posts throughout your application/interview process, you landed the position. In my state, LPN/LVNs aren't hired in hospitals so my post asking if you meant TCU wasn't meant to be snarky (honestly). Where I live, LPNs are employed in clinics, LTC, home care, etc. so unless this isn't the case in other states, it sounds like you found an amazing opportunity. I believe scoring an interview is the hardest part about landing a great position so I'm hoping you hear good news. I work on a similar kind of unit and I had a moment of forgetting trying to prove points and I wanted to tell you that I really appreciate your enthusiasm and passion! I think those are some of the most important attributes when being a nurse anywhere, but actually caring is even more important in critical patients. It seems like you enjoy a challenge and I respect that. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

YES!!! apply! I was hired as a new grad on my dream unit. my managers happened to have graduated from my school therefore that stood out to them as far as getting an interview. you never know when a little confidence or guts will pay off, and you have nothing to lose. go for it and good luck!! and plan on following up with the application, whether it's making a call to HR or the Nurse Manager on the unit his/herself. Put yourself out there and pull out all the stops. Trust me, it will pay off!! í ½í¸Š

You mean a TCU?